Incarceration Argumentation

Much of the thinking employed in Andrew C. McCarthy’s “Fictions of the ‘Carceral State’ ” (October 4) represents a common but inaccurate portrayal of how and why violence persists in the U.S.

While admitting that time spent behind bars does nothing to make violent criminals less violent, and more likely makes them more violent (as they gain “persistence in criminal offending”), the author nonetheless feels that long sentences are needed for violent criminals. So, if the whole incarceration experience is a waste of money (by the author’s admission), then why waste money perpetuating the very acts that harsh sentencing is supposed to deter?

Not all violence can be prevented, but the violence that surrounds the illicit drug trade largely can be prevented. Just as with illicit drugs today, when alcohol was prohibited, violent gangs competed for the production and distribution of alcohol. But while alcohol prohibition was repealed, leading to the safe, legal distribution of alcohol, the “War on Drugs” continues to cost billions in taxpayer money in ways that curtail neither the distribution of illicit drugs nor the violence that comes with their distribution. “Big-money illegal enterprises are inherently dangerous” because illegal big-money enterprises exist in extralegal institutional frameworks that make dangerous competition inherent.

Prohibition of illicit substances not only perpetuates unnecessary violence, it also wastes billions in taxpayer money in attempting to solve a problem taxpayer money will not solve. Treating markets for illicit substances the same way alcohol gets treated (legal, taxed) is the only way to discourage violence in those markets.

Austill Stuart

Reason Foundation

Andrew C. McCarthy responds: What a fatuous argument. I never came close to suggesting that “the whole incarceration experience is a waste of money.” To the contrary, my essay explained that people in prison deserve to be there based, by and large, on being serious or career offenders, and often both. Mr. Stuart believes incarceration is profligate because, he says, the violent emerge no less violent. If so, prison is a bargain because the inmate would otherwise be committing more crimes on the street. The social value of incarceration lies in its incapacitating effect, not its rehabilitative potential. In any event, the piece is not about whether narcotics trafficking should be decriminalized. That is a worthy topic in its own right, as is the need to address over-criminalization in general. But my essay is about dispelling myths that imprisonment is driven by benign drug possession and systemic racism. It is driven by crime – violent and recidivist.